Rakul Preet Singh born 10 October 1990 is an Indian actress and model who predominantly works in Telugu, Tamil and Hindi films. She has received three Filmfare Awards South nominations and is a recipient of a SIIMA Award.
She started career as a model while in college, during which she also made her acting debut in the Kannada film Gilli (2009). In 2011 she participated in the Femina Miss India pageant, in which she was placed fifth and won five pageant titles including People’s Choice Miss Indiatimes, Pantaloons Femina Miss Fresh Face, Femina Miss Talented, Femina Miss Beautiful Smile and Femina Miss Beautiful Eyes.
She subsequently opted to become a full-time actress, making her Telugu debut in Keratam the same year and her Tamil debut in Thadaiyara Thaakka, the following year. In 2014 she also made her Hindi debut in Yaariyan in which her performance was better received.
She was part of the commercially successful films like Venkatadri Express (2013), Current Theega (2014), Rough (2014), Loukyam (2014), Kick 2 (2015), Sarrainodu (2016), Nannaku Prematho (2016), Dhruva (2016), Spyder (2017) and Theeran Adhigaaram Ondru (2017).
In 2017, she was appointed the brand ambassador for Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao programme by Telangana State Government.
Early and personal life
Born in a Punjabi family in New Delhi, Singh did her schooling from Army Public School, Dhaula Kuan and later studied Mathematics at Jesus and Mary College, University of Delhi. Her father was an army officer. Her mother is Rajender Kaur and father is Kulwinder Singh. Her younger brother, Aman Preet Singh, is set to make his Bollywood debut with film Ram Rajya. Singh graduated with a BSc (Hons) mathematics at Jesus and Mary College.
Singh lives in Hyderabad and has house in Mumbai.
Career
Debut (2009–2014)
Singh, who said that she had always dreamt of being an actress, began her career in modelling at age 18 while she was still in college. In 2009 she made her acting debut in the Kannada film, Gilli, a remake of Selvaraghavan’s 7G Rainbow Colony. She stated that she signed up the film “with the aim to earn a little extra pocket money” and that she was unaware “how big south Indian films were”. She won critical acclaim for her role in the film before returning to complete her degree and compete in the 2011 Femina Miss India pageant. Apart from the People’s Choice Miss Indiatimes, she won four subtitles at the pageant including Pantaloons Femina Miss Fresh Face, Femina Miss Talented, Femina Miss Beautiful Smile and Femina Miss Beautiful Eyes.
She returned to films in 2011, featuring opposite Siddharth Rajkumar in Keratam which was released both in Telugu and Malayalam languages, though critics noted that “she got very little screen time”. The film was also made in Tamil simultaneously titled as “Yuvan” with the same cast but different director. In 2012, she appeared in a supporting role in the Tamil film Thadaiyara Thaakka.
In Jan 2013 she appeared in a Tamil film titled Puthagam. In November 2013 she was seen in Venkatadri Express in Telugu, the latter becoming a commercial success and earning her first ever Best Actress nomination at the 61st Filmfare Awards South.
In 2014, she debuted in a starring role in Bollywood with Divya Kumar’s directorial debut Yaariyan, after which her third Tamil film Yennamo Yedho released. By mid-2014, she was working on three Telugu films simultaneously, which were directed by Sriwass, G. Nageswara Reddy, and Gopichand Malineni. Sriwass’s Loukyam and G. Nageswara Reddy’s Current Theega were her next releases. She received positive reviews for her performances in both films, with 123telugu.com going on to claim that she was “slowly becoming a star actress”. She received her second Best Actress nomination at 62nd Filmfare Awards South. Her next released film was Pandaga Chesko in which she was starred opposite Ram Pothineni and directed by Gopichand Malineni.
Public recognition and success (2015–present)
Singh was then selected as the female lead in half-a-dozen, four of which are high-profile Telugu films: Surender Reddy’s Kick 2 opposite Ravi Teja, Srinu Vaitla’s Bruce Lee opposite Ram Charan, Sukumar’s Nannaku Prematho opposite Jr. Ntr and Boyapati Srinu’s Sarrainodu opposite Allu Arjun. She was greatly praised for her movie Nannaku Prematho as she dubbed first time ever for herself in this film and earning her first ever Best Actress award at Jio SIIMA 2017. In January 2016 she signed the film Jaya Janaki Nayaka under the direction of Boyapati Srinu opposite Bellamkonda Sreenivas for which she charged ₹1.5 crore (US$210,000). In February 2016 she signed Surender Reddy’s Dhruva starring opposite Ram Charan for the second time.
In early March 2016 she signed Gopichand Malineni’s film Winner starring with Sai Dharam Tej for the first time. In early July 2016, she signed to AR Murugadoss’ bilingual film opposite to Mahesh Babu, titled Spyder. In September 2016 she signed another Telugu film titled Rarandoi Veduka Chudham directed by Kalyan Krishna starring opposite Naga Chaitanya. The movie was released on 26 May which was a huge blockbuster. She later has received a lot of applause for her look and character as Bramaramba in Rarandoi Veduka Chudham.
In Dec 2016, she signed her next film titled Theeran Adhigaaram Ondru to pair opposite Karthi.
After a small sabbatical in Hindi films, she appeared in Neeraj Pandey’s Aiyaary starring opposite Sidharth Malhotra, released in February.
In 2019, she starred in a guest role in Nandamuri Balakrishna’s NTR: Kathanayakudu as Sridevi. She then went on to play the female lead in Dev opposite Karthi for the second time. Singh appeared with Ajay Devgn and Tabu in Luv Ranjan’s Bollywood romcom, De De Pyaar De, released in May 2019 and received positive reviews. The same month, she appeared in Selvaraghavan’s NGK opposite Suriya. Her fifth release of 2019 was a Telugu romantic comedy film Manmadhudu 2, produced by Nagarjuna Akkineni and directed by Rahul Ravindran. In the same year, she appeared in Milap Milan Zaveri’s action drama Marjaavaan, alongside Ritesh Deshmukh, Sidharth Malhotra and Tara Sutaria.
In 2021, Singh starred in the Chandra Sekhar Yeleti-directed film Check, alongside Nithiin.
Upcoming projects
Singh has signed two Tamil films: S. Shankar’s vigilante-action film Indian 2 and the science fiction film Ayalaan opposite Sivakarthikeyan. She has five upcoming Hindi films. These include Kaashvie Nair’s border romance Sardar Ka Grandson opposite Arjun Kapoor and the action film Attack, co-starring John Abraham and Jacqueline Fernandez in Lakshya Raj Anand’s directorial debut. She is essaying role of a pilot with Devgn and Amitabh Bachchan in Devgn’s own directorial Mayday. She will also be featured in Indra Kumar’s slice-of-life comedy Thank God alongside Devgn and Sidharth Malhotra, and Anubhuti Kashyap’s Doctor G in which she is paired opposite Ayushmann Khurrana. She has been additionally filming an untitled Telugu movie directed by Krish alongside Panjaa Vaisshnav Tej.
Other works
She has an active franchise of three functional training gyms of F45 Training. Two of them are in Hyderabad, located in the suburbs of Gachibowli and Kokapet, while the other is in Visakhapatnam.
Filmography
 |
Denotes films that have not yet been released |
| Year | Title | Role(s) | Language(s) | Notes | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2009 | Gilli | Arati | Kannada | ||
| 2011 | Keratam | Sangeetha | Telugu | ||
| Yuvan | Tamil | ||||
| 2012 | Thadaiyara Thaakka | Gayathri Ramakrishnan | Tamil | ||
| 2013 | Puthagam | Divya | Tamil | ||
| Venkatadri Express | Prarthana | Telugu | |||
| 2014 | Yaariyan | Saloni | Hindi | ||
| Yennamo Yedho | Nithya | Tamil | |||
| Rough | Nandu | Telugu | |||
| Loukyam | Chandrakala “Chandu” | Telugu | |||
| Current Theega | Kavita | Telugu | |||
| 2015 | Pandaga Chesko | Divya | Telugu | ||
| Kick 2 | Chaitra | Telugu | |||
| Bruce Lee: The Fighter | Riya Rao | Telugu | |||
| 2016 | Nannaku Prematho | Divyanka / Divya | Telugu | ||
| Sarrainodu | Jaanu / Mahalakshmi | Telugu | |||
| Dhruva | Ishika | Telugu | |||
| 2017 | Winner | Sitara | Telugu | ||
| Rarandoi Veduka Chudham | Bhramarambha | Telugu | |||
| Jaya Janaki Nayaka | Janaki / Sweety | Telugu | |||
| Spyder | Charlie | Telugu | Bilingual film | ||
| Shalini | Tamil | ||||
| Theeran Adhigaaram Ondru | Priya Theeran | Tamil | |||
| 2018 | Aiyaary | Sonia Gupta | Hindi | ||
| 2019 | N.T.R: Kathanayakudu | Sridevi | Telugu | Special appearance | |
| Dev | Meghna | Tamil | |||
| De De Pyaar De | Ayesha | Hindi | |||
| NGK | Vanathi | Tamil | |||
| Manmadhudu 2 | Avantika | Telugu | |||
| Marjaavaan | Aarzoo | Hindi | |||
| 2020 | Shimla Mirchi | Naina | Hindi | ||
| 2021 | Check | Manasa | Telugu | ||
| Sardar Ka Grandson |
TBA | Hindi | Netflix film | ||
| Ayalaan |
TBA | Tamil | Completed | ||
| Untitled Krish project |
TBA | Telugu | Completed | ||
| Attack |
TBA | Hindi | Filming | ||
| 2022 | Mayday |
TBA | Hindi | Filming | |
| Thank God |
TBA | Hindi | Filming | ||
| Indian 2 |
TBA | Tamil | Filming |
Awards and nominations
| Year | Award | Category | Film | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | Filmfare Awards South | Best Actress – Telugu | Venkatadri Express | Nominated | |
| 2015 | Filmfare Awards South | Best Actress – Telugu | Loukyam | Nominated | |
| 2015 | South Indian International Movie Awards | Best Actress – Telugu | Loukyam | Nominated | |
| 2017 | Filmfare Awards South | Best Actress – Telugu | Nannaku Prematho | Nominated | |
| 2017 | South Indian International Movie Awards | Best Actress – Telugu | Won |